Dec

27

Riley was so excited about Santa’s impending arrival before he went to bed on Christmas Eve I figured he’d be the one waking us up. Maybe crawling over from his bed next to ours in JB’s cramped childhood bedroom, peeling back our eyelids, and urgently whispering that we needed to go and see if Santa ate his cookie or if the reindeer ate their carrot and by the way how about we take a look at those stockings.

Instead, JB sat bolt upright at 6:30 AM, peering blearily at his watch and shaking me awake, convinced we had somehow magically overslept, and despite the visual evidence of it being ass-early—such as for instance the room being PITCH BLACK—demanded we all get up. Even Riley wasn’t interested in Santa or presents right away, being as how he’d been blissfully asleep before his father started flapping around like a watch-misreading chicken, but eventually we all rallied with a minimal of residual irritation.

Except for the part where I’ll probably bring it up for many Christmases to come. (6:30!)

Riley was fairly geeked over the contents of his stocking, which featured, among other flotsam, an eyeball-searing flashlight. Dylan wanted to know when he was going to get some damn waffles already.

Funny thing about Dylan’s present: I’d ordered a Melissa & Doug rocking horse weeks ago, and in the flurry of packing to leave the house on Tuesday we managed to leave it behind. JB remembered it just as we were driving through Portland, and I spent a couple hours in a near tizzy, calling nearby stores, trying to find expedited shipping options online, and generally freaking out because OMG what if I didn’t get to see his face light up at Christmas the way I’d been imagining, AIIEEEE. I finally found a different rocking horse on Amazon and overnighted that bitch, then we were all at dinner on Christmas Eve and learned that a family friend—who happens to be a FedEx driver—couldn’t make it because he was working overtime delivering last-minute packages. Sure enough, when we got back to JB’s parents’ house, there was the horse, delivered safe and sound. So we ruined someone’s Christmas Eve, I spent an extra $70, we now have two rocking horses, and honestly three hours after Dylan got the horse he was back to scampering around with a sofa pillow between his legs, neighing and chirping “Ridin’ da horses!”

Dylan’s gifts almost universally included ten thousand twist ties, and let me tell you, if you’re ever shopping for a little kid, the greatest gift you can possibly give is the act of removing said twist ties before a child is presented with the toy he cannot actually play with until someone does the grunt work, because WOE and TANTRUMS and FISHFLOPPING and LUMPS OF COAL.

Riley got the skateboard he’d wanted so badly, and even though I’m convinced it was a terrible idea and he’s going to break every clumsy little bone in his body on the damn thing, he loves it so much. And so far, he’s not half bad. I mean, whatever that wheelie thing is that he’s doing here, I tried to do it and about fell on my ass.

All in all, it was a pretty great Christmas. I hope yours was too.

PS: JB’s brother gave him a hunting decoy. That, combined with the Toy Story merchandise, was deeply pleasing to me. Merry XXXmas!